constant array of variable length strings

[johnrportsmouth]

keep getting compiler error:
require to be constant:
when I use the following:
char const variable_strings[2] [*] = {"string 1", "string 222"};

Wont recognise [*] ?

Would appreciate if anyone has had the same error. Tks

[Ttelmah]

What is your compiler version?.
This only started working reasonably well in about the mid 4.030 compilers.

Best Wishes

[RLScott]

[Ttelmah]

The CCS compiler added the ability to have an array of constant text strings that vary in length, without all the wasted storage locations, to pad the strings to a fixed length. The syntax is as shown in the original posting. What happens, is that the data is stored as one long sequence of data (with just NULL characters between), and a separate 'table' is generated, holding the start addresses of each string in this sequence. It _costs_ storage space, if you are only using a couple of strings as shown, and is slower to access, but does work.
If you use the 'search' facility in the manual, for 'const', the last article entitled 'Using Program memory for data', shows the syntax.
The most likely thing to stop the shown syntax working, is that the compiler is set to use ANSI mode, or an older CCS mode. This feature _only_ works if you are running in CCS4 mode (the default), and is disabled in these other modes.

Best Wishes

[johnrportsmouth]

Thanks for your help and assistance.

yes I have been using the following:

char const *string_array [] = {"string 1", "string 222"};
j = 2;

z = strlen(*string_array[j]);

fprintf (z);

//z does not hold the length of the string
//my problem is I don't quite understand pointers and how to handle them.

Regards
John

[Wayne_]

Arrays have a zero based index so j=2 will not work.

Try j=0 or j=1